Risk of displacement remains highest in manufacturing

August 10, 2000

From January 1997 through December 1999, 3.3 million workers were displaced from jobs they had held for at least 3 years. The number of displaced workers was about the same as the 3.6 million recorded 2 years earlier in a survey that measured job losses from January 1995 through December 1997.

As was the case in prior surveys, manufacturing continued to make up the largest share of displaced workers. Over the 1997-99 period, 1.0 million factory workers lost jobs, accounting for about 1 in every 3 displacements. This was about twice manufacturing's share of employment.

Substantial numbers of workers were displaced from service-producing industries as well. Displacements in wholesale and retail trade (616,000) and in finance, insurance, and real estate (245,000) accounted for 19 and 8 percent, respectively, of all workers displaced over the 1997-99 period. For both, this was more than their share of employment, indicating that workers in these industries had an above-average risk of being displaced.

These data are a product of the Current Population Survey. Displaced workers are defined as persons 20 years of age and older who lost or left jobs because their plant or company closed or moved, there was insufficient work for them to do, or their position or shift was abolished. Get more information in Worker Displacement in the Late 1990s, News Release USDL 00-223.